1947-01-08, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)

BY DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for Defendant Hoven):

Q: Witness, you told us In detail about the cooperation of the defendant Hoven with the illegal camp administration of the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Did I understand you correctly. Did his cooperation consist of, first, to make suggestions to the illegal administration of the camp and then realize then into acts and then cover acts of the illegal administration, and, secondly, did he translate orders of the SS, according to the suggestions of tie illegal camp administration?

A: The first point is correct. Suggestions of the illegal camp administration were actually conducted and he actually also, covered the realization of such orders by the illegal camp administration. May I ask you to repeat the second point?

Q: To exercise orders of the SS, according to the suggestions of the illegal camp administration?

A: Whenever the SS issued any orders for the camp, which referred to the hospital, to the inmates or with reference to punishment actions in the camp, then the illegal camp administration immediately referred then to Dr. Hoven whenever he was present and asked him to try either to some persons who were in danger, that is to save them from punishment actions, or if the entire camp was affected, he was asked to alleviate these measures by appealing to the camp administration or to have them completely withdrawn.

Q: I now come to the action 14 F 13. Doctor, do you know that two actions 14 F 13 took place; one from May to July, 1941, and a second in the year 1942?

A: I knew that in 1941 as well as in 1942 gas transports left Buchenwald. I do not know that these two actions had the designation 14 F 13. I was of the opinion that only the second action, that is the one of 1942, was designated in that manner.

Q: Doctor, I am not referring to the individual transports but what I mean there were two orders with reference to 14 F 13, one of then from, the month of May to July, 1941, and then there was a second order issued by Himmler in the year 1942. Do you knew that?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you know that during the first action, which took place and was ordered in the year 1941, the inmates were selected by a commission of physicians coring from Berlin, consisting of three physicians?

A: Yes, I know that.

Q: Do you further knew that the defendant Hoven in the year of 1941 was not the first camp physician, but that at that the Dr. Blanke was the first camp physician?

A: Yes, I know that.

Q: Do you know that an order existed, originating from Himmler, with reference to the first action 14 F 13, that in addition to the insane and crippled, all the Jews of the concentration camp Buchenwald were to be selected?

A: Yes, I know that too.

Q: Do you further knew that on the basis of an order of Himmler this action 14 F 15 was only known to a small circle of Fuehrers and SS physicians and that it was forbidden under the punishment of death to inform other people about that?

Q: I learned that from the members of the illegal camp administration, who said that they had learned that from Dr. Hoven on their part.

Q: And that brings me to the next question? Do you know that the defendant Hoven, after being informed about the first action 14 F 15 and its extent, got into contact with the former Reich's Camp Director Kramer of the illegal camp administration and the Jewish Cape leader Cohn and told them about this intended action, contrary to the expressed order of Himmler?

A: I know that and I know it from these days.

A: Do you further know that Kraemer and Cohn agree with the defendant Hoven to prevent the delivery of Jews for that purpose?

A: Walter Kraemer and August Cohn did that. They reached on agreement with Dr. Hoven that everything was to be done in order to prevent this action as far as possible.

Q: Do you else know that this was done by the defendant Hoven? Do you rather know that this action, which was tried to be prevented by the illegal camp administration, was designated 14 F 14 rather than 14 F 15?

A: I cannot now say exactly whether at that time I know that these two letters were exchanged. It is possible, since I myself at a later date whenever this question came up and that was years later, I repeatedly exchanged the numbers one letters.

Q: Can you describe to the Tribunal what measures or counter measures were taken and when it was prevented that all Jews were delivered for these transports?

A: I can say the following in that connection; we did our best to see that 210 Jews, who were for many years in the concentration camp Buchenwald and who made many friends in the camp, or who had important professions, for instance, professors, physicians, antlers, politicians, or such Jews who were of special importance for the development of a more liberal socialist future, we saw to it that they were struck out from the list under the Action 14 F 15. The SS administration of the camp, partly by inmates and partly by Dr. Hoven, was told clearly that a number of very important buildings for the war effort were to be erected outside of the camp. They were told that those buildings could not be erected if a certain amount of building exports wore not at our disposal. Approximately 210 of those Jews, as I described than before, were designated as building exports.

With auditions as they were in the concentration camp, the SS did not investigate such reports and they were hardly able to do that and make a thorough investigation, since most of them, and I mean the SS men, knew nothing about these export professions.

These Jews often had already worked in quarries and in building details and had participated in the forced labor for the erection of barracks and therefore gained some knowledge which enabled them to use that knowledge in an emergency and in case they were investigation. Whether the SS camp administration reported this necessity to keep these builders to the Berlin SS head office or whether on their own initiative merely on the basis, of the suggestion of Dr. Hoven and. the suggestion of many others made the according order, I do not know. It is a fact that these 210 Jews approximately remained in the camp of Buchenwald and nearly all of them stayed there until 1945 and survived this terrible period I know nothing more about the connection in this saving action.

Q: Doctor, you stated before that this saving action was done with the co-operation of the illegal camp administration and Dr. Hoven. I am just being informed, Mr. President, that co-operation was not translated and I should like you to concern with it once more.

A: As I stated, on the basis of suggestion and intervention of Capos and on the basis of suggestion of Dr. Hoven in mutual co-operation.

Q: Witness, do you know that the defendant Hoven carried out further measures in order to save these Jews, namely, getting into contact with the leading physician Dr. Lolling and that he had him prepare a work about anthropological measurements in order to be able to strike these Jews from the lists?

A: I don't know this fact. However, I do know that Dr. Hoven selected a certain number of these Jews and safeguarded them especially by keeping them either the limits of the inmate hospital and housing them there, for instance, in the tuberculosis station August Kohn himself was transferred as a so-called house orderly into Block 46. From there he was later transferred to Block 50 and also thus survived in the cap.

Q: Doctor, do you further know that in spite of all of these measures by the defendant Hoven together with the illegal camp administration took one or two days before departure of the transport, it was found out eleven political inmates who were in important positions were on the list and that then further measures were taken?

A: I know that and I already mentioned it yesterday.

Q: Doctor, with reference to the measures which the defendant Hoven took together with the illegal camp administration knew it by some of these measures that at the beginning of 1942 there was still a large amount of Jews in the concentration camp Buchenwald?

A: That's absolutely correct.

Q: Witness, during your interrogation by the member of the prosecution you were asked what the defendant Hoven had to do with the action 14 F 13?

In this connection you mentioned an exchange of correspondence. Do you know that this correspondence referred to the action 14 F 13 in the year 1942?

A: Whether the first or the second transport actually left, I think one transport did leave. The other transports were prevented and as I was assured by the hospital on the basis of intervention of Dr. Hoven.

Q: I now come to another point. Doctor, you spoke about the conditions and the experiments in the so-called "little camp". Will you please tell the Tribunal in what year these experiments took place in the "little camp"?

A: It was in the year of 1944 and 1945.

A: Well, that was at a time when the Defendant Hoven was already arrested?

A: Yes.

Q: You further spoke about the fact that the Defendant Hoven in the year of 1945 was arrested because of a suspicion of having poisoned the SS Untersclarfuchrer Koehler. Do you know, Doctor, that the Medical Institutes in Jena and Berlin established a nicotine poisoning as the cause of death, and that investigator by criminal counselor Wolner stowed that Koehler had smoked about a hundred cigarets shortly before his death.

A: I know this connection. I also know what part Dr. Welner played in this trial. A number of interventions were started in order to liberate Dr. Hoven and got him away from the jurisdiction of the SS Court. Dr. Whener was one of the protectors of Dr. Hoven. Ding, as well as a number of inmates who were in contact with the members of the SS Court, told me what means were used in this trial.

Q: Doctor, please let me interrupt you, but this trial does not really interest us here, and we do not want to take up the time of the Tribunal, but you know as a fact that such statements were established?

A: Yes.

Q: Witness, do you further know that the proceedings against the Defendant Hoven were based on the case of Kuschnia Huschnarev, and that this case was also part of the proceedings?

A: Yes, I know that, too. Kuschnia Kuschnarev is the correct pronunciation.

Q: Can you tell the Tribunal who Kuschnia Kuschnarev was and what part he played in the camp?

Q: Kuschnia Kuschnarev was a White Russian emigrant. As many of these emigrants of Tsarist, Russia, he called himself a former General. He had been evicted from Yugoslavia, wont to Austria, and as we know from our comrades in the Austrian Police, he gave some confidential services. For a reason which we never knew, Kuschnia Kuschnarev was sent into the concentration camp of Buchenwald and that already in 1939 he know it within approximately one year to awaken the impression of a decent human being. He got to know about a number of things in the camp. Suddenly he started to collaborate with the SS, and those prisoners who came into some contact with him were delivered to the SS by making false or correct statements about them. Kuschnia Kuschnarev soon assumed a very important position on the camp, being furthered, of course, by the SS. At this stage, no doubt, he would have been killed if the SS hadn't safeguarded him in a very special manner. Within the barbed wire where the inmates had their own administration and where the SS Block Fuehrer was only occasionally present, he could not get away from the justice which the prisoners would have noted out to him. He, therefore, was kept by the SS in a little building in the gardens wild normally are not accessible by the prisoners.

Two Jehovah Witnesses who were there, he denounced a few days later to the SS because they had some copies of the Bible in their possession. Those two Jehovah Witnesses were subsequently hanged.

Alien Kuschnia Kuschnarev did not feel himself safe in the gardens, the SS promoted him in the Capo of the inmates office. Kuschnia Kuschnarev then became the chief of one of the main central offices of the illegal camp administration. Every activity of the illegal camp administration from that moment on was made impossible as far as the office was concerned, and this in practice meant that the entire illegal apparatus was laid lame to at least twenty-five percent.

For many weeks there reigned a terror in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, especially when Kuschnia Kuschnarev was selector to instruct the arriving Russian prisoners of war according to tie directives of the camp administration and to investigate them to see whether there were political commissars among them or whether there were any convinced, prominent bolsheviks of any special importance among them. Kuschnarev could do that of the basis of his knowledge of Russian, and did this job extremely well, and on the basis of his denunciations hundreds of prisoners of war were removed from the so-called "prisoner-of-war camp" at the concentration camp of Buchenwald and were subsequently hanged or shot. This prisoner-of-war camp housed within the limits of the barbed wire enclosure of the concentration camp of Buchenwald about eighteen hundred Russian prisoners of war. Any visitors who came to the concentration camp of Buchenwald were taken there and they were really used as an exhibition, for normally all Russian prisoners of war who were removed from, the Stalag, from the prisoner-of-war camps and were sent to the concentration camp without over actually entering the camp were immediately she Kuschnia Kuschnarev, therefore, even from, that sphere inside the camp, selected his victims where there were approximately one thousand eight hundred or one thousand five hundred of these prisoners, and those people proved themselves as excellent comrades of the other inmates in the camp. One tried to find means in order to remove this agent of the SS. For months there was no possibility since Kuschnia Kuschnarev was safeguarded, and any action against him would have become conspicuous, and measures against any people getting such actions would have been taken.

One day after all preparations on the part of the illegal camp administration against Kuschnia Kuschnarev were made in the hospital of the inmates, and these preparations were made in agreement with Dr. Devon, Kuschnia Kuschnarev was careless and went into the hospital complaining of a severe headache in order to receive some drug against it. After an hour and a half he was dead.

I think I can recollect that Dr. Hoven at that time and during these hours was present in the hospital of the camp. It is known to me that the SS Court investigated this case against Dr. Hoven and accused him of murder against Kuschnia Kuschnarev.

Q: In order to clarify one matter, Doctor, you said that Kushnia Kuschnarev was a Tzarist White Russian; in that case, he was not a member of the United Nations?

A: According to what we know from him and from the files of the Political Department through our illegal spying system, he was not a member of the United and Allied Nations.

Q: Would further inmates, especially members of the Allied Nations or rather would many of such members of the Allied Nations have been killed if Kushnia Kuschnarev had not been removed?

A: There is not the least doubt about that.

Q: Was there another possibility to exclude Kushnia Kuschnarev, and thereby prevent further murders of members of the Allied Nations?

A: The possibility -- the political prisoners of the concentration camps of the SS were in an absolute state of emergency. There was no trace of justice for them because the men belonged to the illegal camp administration and there was no other possibility to protect them against dangers other than the possibility of self defense. I personally, as a convinced Christian, do not deny these men the right to act in that state of emergency, and to remove dangerous men who have caused the loss of life of many men in the camp in collaboration with the SS. I am, therefore of the opinion that Kushnia Kuschnarev was justly killed, add that there were no other possibility or way to remove him under the circumstances existing at that time. Especially since we did not succeed in sending Kushnia Kuschnarev on the transport since the SS in the camp used him as one of their main tools.

Q: Did the defendant Hoven only, during the last period, collaborate with the illegal camp administration against the SS, or was that already the case at the time when Germany did not think of defeat?

A: Doctor Hoven from the very beginning of his activities as camp physician cooperated with the illegal camp administration. I do not know during the first period, that is to say, during the first month, that it was clear to him what functions were exercised by the political prisoners in the Concentration Camp of Buchenwald with whom he personally cooperated in the camp and with whom he had dealings. Later because of a number of connections, this connection certainly became clear to him.

Q: I now come to the case of the Poles. Doctor, did you know that Doctor Ding, shortly before his death, during his arrest in Freising had admitted to have killed the Polish physicians?

A: That is not known to me.

Q: Can you define your attitude with reference to the credibility of this admission on the basis of your knowledge of the facts?

A: The face that Doctor Ding had part in the killing of these Poles is beyond doubt; that he, himself killed these Polish physicians, and the other Polish prisoners who were killed. Doctor Hoven, I cannot say with certainty both matters are possible. There are, however, living political prisoners of the former Concentration Camp Buchenwald, who actually present during the killings, and who were either in the same room or in an adjoining room, and who could give the exact information about that matter. In particular is Doctor Mariam Chiepielowsky, who is the only surviving victim, and he would be in a position to testify with regard to that matter.

Q: If I understood you correctly during your examination, you mentioned that this killing of the Polish physicians was not independent of the fight of the illegal camp administration?

A: That is correct.

Q: How was this killing connected with the fight of the illegal camp administration?

A: From the Concentration Camp Auschwitz, shortly before that, the Poles had been sent to Buchenwald. It was reported from the inmates of Auschwitz that amongst those transported there were some so-called Fascist. And, I must mention here that by saying Fascist, that the expression Fascist was misused at that time, during the time I was in the camp as it is still being done today. Whoever had no special orthodox convictions was very easily designated as a Fascist.

However, it was established that some of the Poles who were brought to Buchenwald from Auschwitz had been beating people in the Concentration Camp Auschwitz; that they were really terrorizing their comrades in Auschwitz, and they delivered some of their fellow inmates to the SS, and they were gassed subsequently. We did not know the names of the individuals, the guilty ones. Because of a number of intrigues in the Concentration Camp Buchenwald it was said that an entire group of those Poles coming from Auschwitz were in collaboration with Polish patriots who were in the Concentration Camp Buchenwald and that they intended or had made preparations to take over the leadership inside the camp on their part; that is to remove the illegal people of the illegal camp administration in Buchenwald. I do not know how the SS camp administration received that information, that this group of Poles were preparing some action against the SS, and which could only be believed by the SS because an open riot in the concentration camp was completely out of the question. At any rate, this information which got to the SS through channels unknown to me, was sufficient in causing that action about which I spoke yesterday: namely, that four or five Polish patriots were brought to Block 46, and with the exception of Doctor Chiepielowsky, were subsequently killed.

Q: Doctor, do you know that the defendant Hoven received and protected this Mariam Chiepielowsky which you mentioned; that he promoted him as leader of the hospital in Wernigerode?

A: I know that Doctor Mariam Chiepielowsky became the leader of the hospital in Wernigerode because of his position in the hospital in Buchenwald. That was not possible without a formal approval of Doctor Hoven. I think it is quite probable that some men of the hospital spoke to Hoven about that matter. I do not know all the details in that matter.

Q: I now come to the case of Friedemann and May. With reference to these two persons, were we concerned with Germans or members of the United Nations?

A: We were concerned with two German criminals, so-called professional criminals.

Q: Was it further known to you that these two people as well as two political detainees and five Jews were killed by these two people?

A: What is known to me is that these two. Friedemann and May were known as infamous beaters in the camp, and that a number of victims from every part of the camp must have been attributed to their acts of guilt.

Q: Is it known to you that in the case of this killing of two, the political committee, that is to say, the illegal camp administration, collaborated?

A: That became known to me at a later stage during the time when I was detained in that camp. When this case of Friedemann and May came up before the pre trial judge of the SS legal court, Sturmbannfuehrer Mohr, and where it played an important part, I made inquiries from members of the illegal camp administration and discovered that they had been interested that these two people in the sick bay for prisoners once they had been released as cured and therefore had not perished in the sick bay should be killed in the sick bay.

Q: You have repeatedly mentioned that defendant Hoven was Ding's deputy during Ding's absence; and at the end, during direct examination, you actually mentioned that defendant Hoven had been Ding's assistant. I presume that when using the word "assistant" you were trying to express it that this happened when Ding was absent?

A: I became aware of having used the word "assistant" yesterday. It doesn't originate from me. I didn't use it. It was someone else who used it. Dr. Hoven was Dr. Ding's deputy.

Q: Is it correct to say that Ding, particularly because of the inactiveness of the defendant Hoven and because of the lack of typhus experiments, was chosen by Ding as his deputy?

A: That is correct, in as far as Dr. Ding, who, as I have emphasized, was very ambitious, did not have to be afraid of any competition from Dr. Hoven.

Q: Yesterday you mentioned that defendant Hoven quite often came to Block 46. Is it correct that in this Block 46 the carpenters' and * shoemakers' shop was installed?

A: In Block 46 there was an illegal, small but very effective, tailer and shoemakers' shop, too, which had been installed for Dr. Ding and Dr. Hoven; that is to say, naturally without knowledge on the part of the SS administration of the camp.

In the latter Koch-Hoven trial of the SS this matter, too, played an important part. I can remember the hasty efforts which started in order to remove these two workshops when the matter, as we would say, was about to blow up in the camp. There was continuous work for Dr. Hoven and Dr. Ding going on in these two workshops.

Q: Dr. Hoven presumably visited these workshops frequently, didn't he?

A: He was in comparatively close contact with the Capo in Block 46, Otto Dietsch, who was responsible in Block 46 and who was eager to supply the SS leaders with even more goods than they were wishing to have themselves. Otto Dietsch at that time had already been in detention for a period of twenty years.

Q: And then, Dr. Kogon, you mentioned a three-fold position of the defendant Hoven at the camp at Buchenwald. First of all you said he was camp physician; secondly, Ding's deputy, and, thirdly, for some short periods Dr. Polling's representative.

In order to elucidate this point, I have a few questions to present. First of all, do you know how long defendant Hoven represented Lolling?

A: To my recollection only for a very brief period. Unless I am mistaken, it amounted to about six or eight weeks. I assume that this was in 1943.

Q: But then, if I now toll you that it was only four weeks, would you believe that that could be correct, too?

A: Yes, certainly.

Q: And if I go on to tell you that defendant Hoven as deputy for Dr. Lolling was not in a position to give orders and had no executive powers, would you consider that too to be correct?

A: Yes. I can remember that on one occasion there was an investigation of some sort in order to establish whether Dr. Hoven's authority as Dr. Lolling's deputy enabled him to give orders; whether he had given orders; and whether he had been entitled to give orders. Nothing is known to me about the details of this affair. The medical clerk of Dr. Hoven can give you the information you require.

DR. GAWLIK: Thank you very much. I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross examination of this witness?

DR. GEORG FROESCHMANN: Yes, Dr. Froeschmann, defense counsel for Viktor Brack.

THE PRESIDENT: Will counsel's cross examination be brief or will it take longer than seven minutes?

DR. FROESCHMANN: Mr. President, I have only a very few questions. I should think five minutes would suffice.

CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:

Q: Witness, you had just talked about the action in May to July, 1941, which had taken place and which could be traced back to a Himmler order; is that correct?

A: Are you talking about Action 14-F-13?

Q: Yes.

A: first of all, I was told, sir, in the concentration camp at Buchenwald and, secondly, I believe that on one occasion I heard through my friend Ferdinand Roemhild, the medical clerk in the sick bay for prisoners, and saw through him some document to that effect.

Q: Did you, Mr. Witness, have an opportunity to see the wording of this Himmler order?

A: No.

Q: Did you hear about the wording of it from any other person?

A: I cannot answer your question.

Q: Did the wording of Himmler's order come to your knowledge through your friends?

A: The approximate contents.

Q: Will you please tell the Tribunal the approximate contents of this order?

A: I shall have to say that I have very little recollection of this matter. First of all, I cannot tell you exactly what the sources of my knowledge are--whom I cannot recollect for certain.

Q: Well, then, can you remember that the persons had been clearly designated in that order who were now to be sent away on this transport?

A: I know from practical experience gathered when these transports were put together that Jews and invalids were selected; that is to say, Jews and invalids of every nationality and category; in other words, political, criminal, so-called anti-social, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so forth. I do not know from documentary evidence what the detailed designations were.

Q: The last question. Where did these transports go?

A: A Scharfuehrer who accompanied the first transport and then before half a day later returned with a few last belongings of the victims gave us knowledge for the first time of the fact that this was a gassing action in the northeast of Buchenwald, approximately in that direction in any case, and that this was a lunatic asylum or sanatorium. Later on we discovered that there were three sanatoriums which had been employed for this purpose, one at Bamberg, a second one, if I remember rightly, near Pirna, and the name of the third I can no longer recollect.

DR. FROESCHMANN: I have no further questions, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until 1:30 o'clock.

(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)